Paper Courses

• Author: Ramsey All/Daniel Batista/Koker Christensen/Ian Cooper
• Pages: 121-130

PAPER

Courses

OR

first-year

law

students,

the

primary method

of

evaluation

consists

of

final

exams that account

for

most

—

often

all—of

the

course grade.

A

significant change

in

second

and

third year

is

that students have

the

option

of

taking courses

in

which

they

write

papers

rather than exams.

In the

next chapter,

we

will discuss consid-

erations that

are

relevant

to

course selection generally.

At

this

point,

however,

we

assume that

the

decision

has

been made

to

take

a

paper

course,

and our aim is to

outline

a

successful

strategy given that

deci-

sion.

Not

surprisingly, many

of the

skills developed

in

previous

chap-

ters

will

be

relevant here. Still,

it is

necessary

to

acknowledge that

paper

courses

are

different.

An

appropriate strategy must take

account

of

these

differences.

CLASS

ATTENDANCE

and

READING

The

most obvious

difference

between paper

and

exam courses

is the

classroom

dynamic. Most paper courses

are

seminars

with

a

greater

emphasis

on

class

participation.

In

part, this

is due to the

fact

that

seminars

consist

of

fewer students and,

in

this more intimate environ-

ment,

student

participation

is

both

invited

and

expected.

Nonethe-

less,

Charlie

and

Billie seem oblivious

to

this

difference.

As in

exam

classes,

Charlie

can be

expected

to be

dozing

off

while

Billie

is

likely

to be

scribbling madly.

This

leaves them

ill

suited

to

participate

in

class

discussion.

Andie

is the

only

one who

appears

to be

doing

something

different.

She is

listening intently

but

doing

little

in the

way

of

note-taking. This means that Andie

is

well placed

to

exploit

121

five

F